Now Let's Talk of Graves (3 page)

Now she was telling Kitty how that move was looking like a less than judicious one, as the then-newly-serious
Constitution
had run aground.

“So what's happening now? Sounds like you're up to your ass in rattlesnakes, that piece I read about the newspaper in
Vanity Fair
.”

“Just about. Pit vipers. We should have known Kovach, the editor, wouldn't last. It's been a mess since the suits with the calculators ran him off. Should have known they weren't going to let the man run the newspaper as if folks were literate. Wanted to read the
news
,
for chrissakes.
Graphics,
the suits say. Give 'em color pictures, like on TV.”

“Doesn't sound good.”

“Excuse me, ladies.” Gerard was back with their food.

“It ain't, sweetcakes. But let's don't let it ruin a perfectly good shrimp remoulade.” Sam reached over to Kitty's plate and speared a bite of the cold shrimp smothered in creole mustard sauce. “Ummmmm. Maybe I'll find work in New Orleans. Lunch here every day. The Bon Ton. The Bistro.”

“Wait a minute, before you get me deep into lunch, I just want to know, you gonna fish or cut bait on the paper? Or do you have a choice?”

Sam shook her head, her mouth full of shrimp. Then: “They're not firing people, if that's what you mean. Folks are just disappearing. Going off on vacations that are really job interviews. Hell, we lost our Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist, turned around, and stole yours.” She pointed with her fork. “The
Times-Picayune's
.”

“Et tu?”

“I've had offers. It's that I feel like I only got back to Atlanta. I'm just getting used to it again, speaking Southern, getting the freeways down.”

“Any other game in town if you want to stick around?”

“Certainly no other newspapering. And the great old days of magazining there are long gone.”

“So?”

“Right now I'm planning on eating shrimp and oysters till I pop.” She caught the waiter's eye and pointed for more of both. “Hoke—that's my managing editor—keeps trying to tell me things are gonna turn around. He's wrong. The only thing's gonna turn is me. Turn forty.”

“Isn't that a shame?”

“You too, toots.”

“Yeah, but you go first. You'll be sure and let me know how it feels?”

“Probably about like a swift kick in the tuckus.”

“You know,” Kitty said, leaning back in her chair a little. “I've been giving this matter a lot of serious consideration, and I've decided Perrier makes you mean.”

Sam laughed. “You could be right. But the tradeoff with bourbon is that at least I have all my shoes now.”

“Oh, yeah. You and your Ferragamos. Dropping 'em all over the Bay Area.” She leaned back even farther in her bentwood chair.

“You know you look just like an old man chomping on a cigar when you do that?”

Ignoring her, Kitty continued. “Tossing your tennyrunners in the gutter 'cause they pinched.”

Sam couldn't resist joining in, poking fun at her former self. “Spending half my days buying new ones and every night getting rid of them 'cause I never broke 'em in before I was wasted again. There must have been a trail over half of northern California of my eight and a half double A's.”

“To the old days.” Kitty raised her glass.

“And the new, improved ones.” Sam paused. “The nineties an improvement? I can't believe I said that. Drunk or sober, I miss the hell out of the sixties, don't you?”

“You better know it.” Then Kitty got serious. “The drinking here gonna bother you? You know what Carnival is.”

Sam shook her head. “Amateur night. Give me some interesting folks, something worthwhile going on, the alcohol's no problem. Not that boozers are exactly the crowd I hang with these days.”

“Except for me.”

“Except for you.” That was a joke. Kitty drank, but hardly kept pace with most New Orleanians. “So, listen, about Carnival, I didn't get a chance to ask you what's this business with the callouts—those things that came along with the invite? And just by the way, sending it registered mail was cute but unnecessary.”

“Why, honey, we have to make sure invitations don't get in the mitts of the hoi polloi who are lying in wait for them. We're talking about the Mystick Krewe of Comus here. We're talking tradition back to 1851. We're not talking fly-by-night.”

“What I really don't understand is how on earth do such fine folks put up with your mouth?”

“No choice. Whole thing's hereditary. 'Course,
I'm
not a member anyway. Comus is an old boys' club. Brother Church belongs. Daddy did. I get it from both sides, actually. My mama's daddy was Comus too.” Kitty waved an imaginary fan. “We ladies just come along with our gent'-men, like any other property—cattle, cotton. 'Course, I was a
Queen
of Comus. Third straight generation. My mama, Estelle, God rest her soul. Grandmama, Ma Elise. This year Church's Zoe makes it an uninterrupted fourth.”

“I know you've explained all this rigamarole to me a million times. But—you know I've never been except when I was a kid.”

Kitty nodded. “In the street with all the other riffraff. That's the
public
Carnival. Krewes put those on for everybody. The balls are another matter. 'Course, even some of them are public. But
not
Comus. God, taste this trout.”

“Eat half and we'll swap plates.”

“When did you turn into such a
gourmand?
Not that you weren't always a healthy eater, but—”

“
Gourmet,
my dear. You know how we recovering drunks are. Got to have something to obsess about. Food's my latest. I've even become a rather spectacular cook since Peaches is never in our kitchen at Uncle George's. She's too busy teaching all of Atlanta how to read with her literacy campaign.”

“Well, you've definitely come to the right place. In this town we've always talked restaurants before sex or politics. Even beats football.”

“You think I could get the recipe for this sauce?”

“We'll ask Gerard. Now, is there anything you want to know about the ball tomorrow night?”

Sam whispered, “Maybe we shouldn't even be talking about it here—it being so secretive and all.”

“Secretive?” Kitty hooted. “Darlin', you don't even know the meaning of the word.
Exclusive
is what we're talking here. You've got your attitude on crooked. Why, there are still geezers grousing about having had the Duke and Duchess of Windsor as guests of honor forty years ago. What with
her
past. And poor old Huey Long never got an invite to anything. Made him so mad he tried to ban Carnival. Might as well have tried to close the river down.”

“No wonder most people just drink in the street.”

“Great. Great. That's the thanks I get for breaking my butt to get you in. I had to put your name in to the invitation committee months ago to get you certified.”

“Come on.” Sam laughed.

“I'm not kidding. You think the Piedmont Driving Club over in Atlanta is something? They are
nouveaux
upstarts compared to us. I want to tell you your pedigree
barely
got you in.”

“Yeah, well, you know how seriously I take all that bull.”

“Oh, my, yes. You always were so proud of trading in your debut for that little green Triumph you had at school. You're the biggest reverse snob I've ever known, Miz Adams. But your uncle George still flies the flag, doesn't he?”

“Belongs to the Driving Club? Sure, for business. But since his retirement he never goes. Now, lay off my grand egalitarianism, and quit changing the subject, and answer my question about this callout business. I didn't come all the way over here not to know what's going on, make a fool of myself.”

“They don't call them reporters for nothing, do they?” Kitty rolled her eyes up at the ceiling. “Okay, okay, callouts are dance cards—of which I wangled you two. Your name gets called out loud when it's your turn to dance with the gentlemen who have sent you the callouts.”

“And the rest of the time I boogie with whoever I want?”

“It's more like a waltz than the boogie, and the rest of the time you sit. There are only about six tunes, and the members first have to make sure they've taken care of their own women. So two puts you in the Ms. Popularity stakes. With none you'd sit up in the balcony and watch with the other biddies who'll be checking you out through their mother-of-pearl binocs. Who's
she
?
they'll say.”

“You think I'd come all the way from Atlanta to
watch
?”

Kitty sighed. “There are local women who have never done anything
but
watch. You don't understand how exclusive this all is. How
important
to us. Why, there have been
threats
over callouts not forthcoming. Acts of vengeance over queenships.
Suicides
.”

“Why don't those who are snubbed just move to another town?”

“Because—”

And then Kitty realized that Sam was putting her on. No matter that Sam had chosen to skip her debut in Atlanta, that she had lived for many years in California, or that she had a liberal education and an even more leftish turn of mind. Once a belle, always a belle with those Deep South sensibilities—even if they were well hidden most of the time.

“Quit wasting my breath with your bullshit, woman,” Kitty said.

“You're absolutely right. We have more important things to worry about. Like does Galatoire's still make jelly crepes for dessert? And where's our coffee?”

Three

IN THE CRESCENT City, drinking in a neighborhood bar is a legitimate and time-honored avocation that has nothing to do with which side of the blanket a man was born on or the amount of cash in his pocket. Such bars are egalitarian clubs where Uptown and Downtown mingle, where one sees old and new friends and neighbors, exchanges gossip, bets on sporting events. The clientele is mostly male, though not exclusively, New Orleans being an equal opportunity drinking town.

The Pelican on Magazine was such a bar, a few blocks downtown and riverward from the house in the Garden District that Kitty Lee shared with her grandmother, Ma Elise. In fact, the Pelican was the very spot where Kitty's husband, Lester, the well-bred prize who had come her way after she was Comus queen as easily as if he popped out of a Cracker Jack box, had literally lost his mind. On the eve of their first wedding anniversary, Lester Lee, Kitty's second cousin as well as her husband, had pulled a .38 out of his jacket and splattered said mind all over the Pelican's well-oiled mahogany. Right now, at just about that very spot, sat the red-haired Chéri whom Harry Zack had followed.

It had been easy to tail the big white limo from the airport to Chéri's house on the very private Audubon Place—a location so private, in fact, Harry had had to park his car outside the gate and do an end run around the guard on foot. He'd strolled by Chéri's great cream-colored Victorian extravaganza just in time to see the lady jump out of the big car, pop in her front door. No sooner had the white limo pulled out of sight than she'd popped out again. While Harry watched from across the street, she backed out of her driveway in a blue Mercedes coupe, a twin, except for the color, to the one she'd cracked up. Probably a loaner—or, who knew, maybe the lady had a spare. Then she wheeled over to the Pelican, a place Harry knew but didn't frequent, tending to do his hanging out in the Quarter near where he lived.

As Harry had sauntered in, about ten beats after Chéri, the barman had stopped polishing glasses to greet her. She'd leaned across the bar for the big buss, working that pretty neck again, and kissed him on both cheeks.

Now, down at his end of the bar, Harry signaled for a Dixie draft. Chéri gave him a quick glance with nothing on it, then turned back to the barman, who was named Calvin. “You would not
believe
what happened at the airport. Here, at Moisant, I mean. My friend picked me up, and just as his car, his limo, pulled in, this little bitty guy who was crossing the road on foot, like, took offense. Thought the limo had cut him off. Beat his little tiny hand on the window. My friend's driver, who is this gigantic black dude, got out and I thought, Oh, Jesus, sucker's bought the farm now, driver's gonna turn him into
mah nez.
Then right next to us this car backfired, and that little dude, he—”

“Crapped his pants,” said Calvin.

“No!” Chéri shrieked, getting high off the telling of it.

Harry looked around the room. The whole bar's attention was focused on her, which it would have been anyway considering that she was the only pretty woman there and certainly the only one in a too-tight white jumpsuit unbuttoned to East Jesus.